Fixtures, furniture and equipment

FF&E Scope often varies from project to project. It is usually bid, purchased, & budgeted separately from the base building. This usually occurs for accounting purposes because FF&E are often valued, taxed, & depreciated differently from real estate (the base building). Typically, FF&E are movable furniture, fixtures, or other equipment that have no permanent connection to the structure of a building or utilities. Therefore, permanent, built-in kitchen cabinets are not usually FF&E, but freestanding, IKEA-type, movable units might qualify. Commercial kitchen equipment is almost always purchased as FF&E. The question should be, “How are kitchen cabinets being purchased on your specific project?” If your cabinets have been bid with fixed, base-building elements, they probably cannot count as FF&E, and IEQc4.4 applies to them. If they have been procured separately, along with movable furniture and equipment, they probably qualify as FF&E. However, by selecting and specifying NAUF units, you can protect indoor air quality even if the items cannot contribute to IEQc4.4.